A network management system (NMS) typically comprises a software program that enables a network administrator to centrally configure a number of network devices, such as routers, virtual private network (VPN) gateways, load balancers, firewalls, and the like, which are often used by enterprises. An NMS is usually run on a central computing device, but is often accessible from a remote computing device. The network administrator usually configures the NMS with a list of the network devices by entering a static Internet protocol (IP) address for each network device. Alternatively, the network administrator can enter a unique device name (sometimes referred to as a host name), and rely on a standardized domain name system (DNS) server to resolve the static IP address from the unique device name. Any change to a static IP address effectively comprises a change to a host name assignment, which is generally manually entered by a DNS service and propagated to relevant DNS servers.
Generally, NMS's do not enable any change to the static IP address or device name in the list of network devices, except by an authorized network administrator. However, some network devices can now use dynamically changing IP addresses, which can increase the security of each network device. Many Internet service providers (ISPs) dynamically assign an IP address to a client computing device that is valid only during one communication session. The ISP then reuses the same IP address for another client device when the communication session with the previous client computing device is ended. However, within an ISP and/or other enterprise, dynamic IP addresses were not historically needed for network devices such as routers, firewalls, and the like. As network usage grows, some large enterprises have increasingly larger numbers of such network devices, which might result in running out of static IP addresses for use by the enterprise. Large numbers of network devices can be managed easily by an NMS. However, modifying an NMS to allow automatic updates to the NMS list is expensive, and might introduce an access doorway that may affect the security of the entire enterprise network. A dynamic DNS server can resolve dynamic IP addresses, but generally requires manual configuration of multiple transaction signature (TSIG) keys and zone files that may not be practical for managing numerous network device with an NMS.